I manage projects as an engineer. There are other people in my office that are sales people. They manage projects much differently. Truly managing a project as an engineer requires identifying risks. That assessment isn't for the faint of heart. You must find things that could go wrong. Sales people are often distressed by this search. One sales … [Read more...]
You’re Too Good of a Speaker
"You're too good of a speaker." I've heard those words and they depressed me. Now they put a smile on my face. I realize now that my friends, all excellent technicians, were telling me that they preferred a complex presentation that was a little rough around the edges—just like the world they lived in I had a difficult transition from … [Read more...]
PowerPoint Confession
I confess. In the mid-1980s, I really liked Powerpoint. I was a Systems Engineer for the Amdahl Corporation who gave hundreds of presentations each year. Up until PowerPoint, my choices for media was either a slide projector or overhead projector. So, I could use the corporate slide set or hand draw my own overheads. The corporate slide set, … [Read more...]
Coping with a Double Bind
In my last post , I posed the question, "What coping strategies are better than ambivalence and apathy (in a double bind situation)?" There is nothing wrong with being ambivalent or apathetic about an environment that constantly puts you in a double bind. These coping strategies are reasonable and always available. My question was intended to … [Read more...]
The Double Bind
Are you in a relationship where no matter what action you take that you are admonished by a person whose approval you seek? For instance, a mother gives her son two different shirts as gifts for his birthday. He wears one of the shirts to his birthday party. His mother sees him and her first words to him are, "You didn't like the other … [Read more...]